By Daniel Hartill,Staff Writer

In the rare moments when the rain stops, farmer Dave Bell seeks out the high ground.

He plants when he can in the drier, sandy soil beside the Androscoggin River. And when the rain begins again – as it always seems to this spring – he tries to find the patience that comes with being the third generation to cultivate these fields.

“The hardest thing is to be patient,” Bell said Wednesday.

In the past four weeks, more than 18 inches of rain has fallen over the Bell family’s fields, located on either side of the river in Lewiston, Auburn and Durham.

“Of course, anyone in this business is in the same boat,” Bell said. “No pun intended.”

Across western Maine, farmers say their crops are a week or so late. Planting in many places has been delayed because the rain has turned the fields to muddy traps. Meanwhile, greenhouse-grown seedlings have grown thin and weak. They’re dry, but starved for sunlight.

It’s been a dark and soggy season.

According to the New England Agricultural Statistics Service, the rainfall has been anywhere from 2 inches to 10 inches above average for the past month. In Livermore Falls, the average rainfall is a shade over 10 inches. But this year, 15 inches fell. In Rangeley, the average was around 7 inches, and 11 fell.

Some crops like the rain, Sabattus farmer Ed Jillson said.

“The peas look awfully good,” he said. And some crops, such as the corn and potatoes, have yet to grow up through the top of the soil.

“We don’t know what’s happening to them,” he said. Maybe they’re not growing. Maybe, there’s mold.

“I think things will be a little late,” said Jillson, who operates a farm stand off Route 126.

Like Bell, he suggests patience. In the warmth and light, plants have a way of catching up to the calendar, he said.

“They say it’s going to be a warm weekend,” Jillson said. “That’s going to help.”

To Amy LeBlanc, it may take more than a few warm days. The owner of Tomato Lover’s Paradise in East Wilton wants sun.

“It’s pretty nasty,” she said. “I’ve been cold and wet for about a week and a half.”

At her home, Whitehill Farm, she raises more than 150 varieties of tomatoes and grows more than 15,000 seedlings in greenhouses.

Many of her plants, sold via catalog, have been weaker than usual.

“Without sunlight, they don’t get chubby and strong,” she said. “They get tall.”

The plants will easily bounce back, she said, but she worries that she will draw few walk-ins. When it’s raining, no one plants, she said.

That, too, is the concern at the Carter Farm Stand on Route 26 in Oxford.

Erik Person, who has worked there for nine years, said the people who stop by seem always to complain about the weather. He tries to keep people positive, despite what seems to be a notable streak of foul weather.

“I’m a friendly, outgoing guy,” he said. “I tell people they’re experiencing history.”

Ed Jillson takes a more stoic approach.

He doesn’t believe he’s lost any crops yet, and eventually, the weather will break.

“This old Earth has been green a long time,” he said. “It’ll get better.”